Frank Latham, 1917-18. Jessie always called him ‘Bud’.
I just love it when I’m reading about something in Jessie’s diary and realize I have the corresponding photograph(s). For that reason I am adding another post, short on words but with lots of pictures.
Frank Latham and unknown soldier. Frank is climbing into the aeroplane.
Saturday, September 8, 1917: Bud sailed this morning for France. He is going to some flying school just out of Paris. I can’t bear the thought of his being gone. Still, one of his greatest ambitions is being fulfilled. Swayne to-gether with the 1st Tennessee left Nashville to-day for Greenville, S.Car. They will soon leave for France. Deep in my heart I feel as though they will both come back. Good-bye, Good-luck, God bless them! On September 22, 1917 Jessie received a letter from Bud (Frank) that he had written while still at sea on the Adriatic. She had no idea whether he was yet in France.
Jessie Latham and Hartwell Temple with camp dog. Nashville, 1917
On September 19th Jessie received a letter from Hartwell Temple (whom she always called ‘Temp’) with some Kodak pictures of her recent visit to Nashville.
Hartwell Temple, Nashville 1917
On September 22, 1917, Jessie took part in a large pageant called Armageddon given at the Fair Grounds for the benefit of the Red Cross. In her words, It presents the struggle between good and evil. Upon the world stage is Hope, Faith, Love, Song, Peace, Charity, Joy, Truth and others from Elysium, all the dwellers of Arcadia and Eutopia (Zephyrs, Sunbeams, Flowers, Fairies, Pipers, Gypsies, Shepherds and Shepherdesses, Lords and Ladies). Then Discord comes through the gateway of Pandemonium. He is followed by Ambition, Hate, Jealousy, Envy, Greed, Lust who try to destroy the Court of Love. War enters the scene, followed by Disease, Famine, Pestilence and Death. And on the instant a company of Red Cross knights dash forward to repel them, the Sons of America (boy scouts and home guards) rush into the fray, the victory is won! War is banished. The dream of the ages is realized. Costumes for the pageant were supplied by the participants. Jessie was a Medieval Lady with a high pointed hat. Her costume was back and yellow and made by Jessie, her mother, and her auntie.
On November 24, 1916, Jessie gave a luncheon in honor of the debutantes. She had several activities planned. During the luncheon and after each course, the girls each received a favor which represented a prediction of the future or a personal insight of some kind. Jessie drew a dipper – for the dippiest debutante. It was also predicted that she would marry a farmer, and that in the winter of 1917 she would have a love affair that would almost break her heart, but all would end well. Next, all the girls had their palms read. Jessie was told she “was fickle, but very sincere and frank.” And finally, as Jessie said, “we saw the Ghosts of my friends.” The Ghosts of My Friends was a novelty autograph book. The directions at the front of the book were: “Sign your name along the fold of the paper with a full pen of ink, and then double the page over without using blotting paper.” The ghost of your friend would then be revealed. Jessie must have bought this book especially for this luncheon, and the ghosts of all the debutantes were revealed in it that day!
Constance Wait’s ‘ghost’, November 24, 1916Sarah Perkins’ ‘ghost’, November 24, 1916Jessie Latham’s ‘ghost’, November 24, 1916
After Jessie’s signature in 1916, the next entries were her husband’s signature in 1934 (Percy A. Perkins), followed by her children. My 9-year-old mother Frances signed in 1935, and my uncle Percy signed as an 8 or 9-year-old boy. The next date listed in the book is with my signature (Jenny Klein) in 1960. I was 8. My brother Vic, who was 12, signed on July 6, 1960. My sister Karen signed in June, 1964. She was 10 at the time and is the last entry, and because we no longer had good drippy fountain pens, Karen designed her own ghost. (My youngest sister Judy missed all the fun, being too little to sign.)
Percy A. Perkins, 1934Frances Perkins, 1935
Jenny Klein, 1960Vic Klein III, 1960Karen Klein, 1964
There was an earlier similar book titled Your Hidden Skeleton. Jessie must have gotten this book around 1910. She began having people sign her book, friends and family, on June 1, 1910. By June 4th the book was full. But inside, I was thrilled to see her mother’s beautiful penmanship and ghost, and also her father’s signature, F.S. Latham, and her brother Swayne’s autograph. A clever, but a dead entertainment.
Mrs. F. S. Latham, June 1, 1910F.S. Latham, June 1, 1910Swayne Latham, 1910
There were two big events for Jessie in the summer of 1916. First, President Woodrow Wilson called up the U.S. Militia to the Mexican Border. This was part of the border war during the Mexican Revolution. The nationwide call up was in May, and by the end of June it seemed all the boys from the Memphis area were leaving for some kind of basic training before they went to the border. Jessie’s oldest brother Frank (Bud) was deployed as well.
The second big thing for Jessie in the summer of 1916 was her 3-week trip to Chicago. She stayed with relatives in Evanston (her cousin Mary Katherine attended Northwestern) and almost everywhere she went she took the L, or elevated train. Incidentally, the oldest sections of the Chicago L started operation in 1892.
Chicago L Northwestern car, 1907
One day she ate lunch at Marshall Fields then went to the Art Institute and spent the afternoon. These are some the the paintings she mentioned liking in her diary. As you can see they were all fairly contemporary for 1916.
The Song of the Lark, Breton 1884Sunlight, John White Alexander 1909Early morning Tarpon Springs, Inness 1892
Jessie was invited several times to dances at the old Edgewater Beach Hotel. An outdoor dance floor close to the shore of Lake Michigan was an especially nice attraction unless the waves were rough.
Ty Cobb, 1913
Always a baseball fan for her local Memphis Chicks, Jessie got to go to a couple of White Sox games at Comiskey Park. In one game the Sox played Detroit and Jessie saw Ty Cobb play. According the the Baseball Hall of Fame , “Ty Cobb may have been the best all-around baseball player that ever lived.”
Comiskey Park, 1910
There were so many restaurants and theaters that Jessie visited. Several times her dates took her to Bismarck Gardens, a beautiful restaurant and entertainment venue under the trees.
Bismarck Gardens, 1914Bismarck Gardens
Lucky Jessie also got to attend the Ravinia music festival near Chicago. Ravinia itself was fairly new, opening in 1904 as an amusement park, and reopening in 1911 as a primarily classical music festival. One evening Jessie saw the opera Lucia di Lammermoor performed by the “Metropolitan Grand Opera Co.” Conveniently, the train stopped right at the entrance gates to Ravinia.
Jessie Latham, Flower Market at Court Square in Memphis, April 10, 1916
On April 10, 1916 Jessie wrote in her diary: Such a wonderful time to-day! I was a flower girl. All of Court Square was changed into a flower garden and ever so many of us girls sold flowers all day. I sold a world of carnations, roses and little bouquets. — This is such a wonderful photograph. I believe it was taken by a newspaper photographer and may be the picture that Jessie reported was in the newspaper the day after the market.
Now, going back in time a few months to January and February 1916. Jessie began rehearsals for a big production of The College Hero in January. The performances took place February 15 and 16 and according to Jessie, it was a great success. Jessie was a dancing girl and also a college widow.
Dancing girls in The College Hero, February 15-16, 1916. Jessie is on the right.
Here is one more newspaper clipping, this one of the Fancy Dress Ball given by the Chickasaw Guards on March 7, 1916 (see previous post). Jessie’s picture seems to show up in the newspaper quite frequently! She is in the middle row on the right next to the standing woman. Her date Dr. Coppedge is behind her.
We all know that names become fashionable and go out of style. A naming trend that must have been common in Memphis at the time, at least among Jessie and her acquaintances, was names that can be used by either sex, or names that are typically used for one sex being used by the other sex. Jessie herself has a name that has always been a female name in her family’s history, but it can also be a male name when spelled ‘Jesse.’ Here are some people that Jessie knew:
Ethel – She is Jessie’s cousin and was named for her uncle Ethel (who died young) and grandfather Ethel.
Clinton (called Clint) – a girlfriend from Deeson, Mississippi and the sister of one of Jessie’s beaux.
Aunt Jim – I don’t know who this is, but Jessie mentions her from time to time.
Freddy – a girl in Jessie’s circle of friends who has dated….
Blythe – a guy in Jessie’s circle of friends.
Ashley – a guy.
Jessie’s older brother Frank (“Bud”) at 20. He was named after his father.
Bernice – a boy Jessie knows in Gates, TN.
Carroll – a Memphis boy that Jessie knows.
There was another interesting naming tradition in Jessie’s family. Her brother Swayne’s given name was his mother’s maiden name, Jessie Gray Swayne. When Swayne married, that tradition was carried on in his family. One of his sons was given the name Davant, his wife’s maiden name.
The first roof top night club in Memphis opened in 1914. It was the Alaskan Roof Garden on top of the Falls Building, Memphis’ tallest building at the time. Quickly it became a favorite place for Jessie and her friends to go dance. The music was great – W.C. Handy and his band played there regularly and premiered St. LouisBlues there in 1914 – and the breezes off the Mississippi River were cool on those sultry summer nights in Memphis.
Many automobile companies lived and died in the early 1900s. Since I like to keep track of all the kinds of cars Jessie rides in, here are a few more that she named:
Lozier 1914
Lozier – The family car for one of Jessie’s friends, the Lozier was the top of the line in luxury cars from 1900-1915, and for a time was the most expensive car produced in the U.S.
The American – the American Motor Car Co. was founded in 1906 and went bankrupt in 1913. This car company pioneered the underslung design with the chassis below the axles rather than perched on top.
1914 Buick
Buick – Jessie talks about her friend Babe’s big 6 cylinder Buick.
Packard 1916
Oakland Roadster – From 1909 to 1932 the Oakland Motor Car Co. operated in Pontiac, Michigan. In 1914 the roadsters the company produced were large 6 cylinder vehicles on a 130″ wheel base.
Packard – A luxury automobile produced by the Packard Motor Car Co. of Detroit, MI. Packard autos were produced from 1899 to 1956.
Ford – Ford produced the Model T from 1908 to 1927. It was advertised as a more affordable automobile. Several of Jessie’s friends drove Fords. Coach Sullivan, one of her beaux, must have driven a large Model T because she calls it his “mighty Ford.” Max Sansing can carry several people in his Ford, but Doug (one of her most serious boyfriends) drives a 2-seater.
Model T Speedster 19141914 Model T 2-seater
If you read Jessie’s diaries, you know that she goes to the “moving picture show” a lot, most days in fact and sometimes more than once a day. She loves the movies. In December 1914 and also in January 1915 Jessie remarked that she had gone to see a Keystone Comedy. Mack Sennett founded the Keystone Studios in 1912 in California. He was the originator of the slapstick comedy routines seen in the Keystone Cops films. Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, W.C. Fields, and Carole Lombard, among others, all worked with Mack Sennett at Keystone Studios early in their careers.
Mack Sennett, known as the King of Comedy, founded Keystone Studios (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)
And finally, on Sunday, January 10, 1915, Jessie’s brother Swayne, who was two weeks away from turning 17 years old, got his first real job. Jessie wrote in her diary: Swayne decided he wanted to get out in the woods – to go to work. At noon today Mr. Kerr gave him a splendid position – as rodman for a surveyor across the river from Cairo, Ill. Chappy was over all afternoon and we all helped Swayne pack up. He was gone by supper time. Mother just cried and cried, in fact we all did. Sure will miss Swayne, he is always so bright, and he certainly is a sweet good boy. I sure love him.
The cast of Endymion, Central High School in Memphis, 1914. Jessie is the 2nd girl to the right of the garland.
Here is another ‘slice of life’ posting, cultural tidbits from Jessie’s life in the Spring of 1914.
On April 2nd, 1914, Jessie wrote in her diary that she and her friends ran from school over to Bowers grocery store at noon to buy food for a picnic lunch. They bought pickles, sweet rolls, adnas, fig newtons, Saratoga chips, chocolate cakes, Tit-bits, and candy. I have not found any reference to adnas in my research, so I have no idea what that is. Fig Newtons have been around for a long time, and in fact were first patented and made in 1891. Saratoga chips are the original potato chips invented in 1853 by Chef George Crum at a restaurant in Saratoga Springs, New York. Tit-bits was a general interest magazine with articles, as the sub-title read, “from all the most interesting books, periodicals and contributors in the world.”Jesse Reno in 1859 and Charles D. Seeberger in 1897 are both credited with inventing the escalator. Reno’s 1859 version was powered by steam. Seeberger, with the help of the Otis Elevator Company, entered his invention in the Paris Exhibition of 1900 where it won first prize. At different times both he and Reno sold their patent rights for the escaltor to the Otis Elevator Company. Jessie notes on April 4th that she and her friend Sara “went through all the 10 cent stores & rode the moving stairs or rather ‘escalator’ in the new Kress.”
Family history says that Jessie’s mother was very funny and often cracking jokes. Jessie had a good sense of humor too. One of the final senior assignments in English class was Shakespeare’s Macbeth. On April 28th Jessie wrote, “I read all of Macbeth this afternoon. When I finished I was sure glad for “If ’twere done, then ’tis done and its good if ’twere done quickly.”
Reading Jessie’s diary I am often reminded that driving and riding in a car in the early part of the 20th century could be dangerous. There was no driver’s ed. or driving school. A driving license cost little and people learned to drive on the road. On the evening of April 25th Jessie notes that they got their car out of the shop. The Latham’s Hudson had been in the shop for a while, and must have had some body work done because the auto was repainted dark blue from its original black. Five days later on April 30th Bud wrecked the car again. At around 11:30 that night he was bringing several of his work colleagues home from working late at the bank (or so he told Jessie) and must have been speeding, because the car skidded out of control throwing several of them out of the car and injuring some of them. Jessie was sure that was the end of their Hudson. The running board and the back wheels were ruined, but the Lathams had their car back from the shop again within a couple of weeks.
I am also reminded that everyone’s health was more fragile in the early 1900s before antibiotics, vaccinations, and sanitation improvements. On Mother’s Day (May 10, 1914), another one of Jessie’s friends died. Susie Fleece was her name, and though Jessie didn’t identify the disease, Susie seems to have died of tuberculosis.
A graduation gift to Jessie Latham from Helen Spengler.Some of the gold pins Jessie got for graduation.
Jessie graduated from Central High School in Memphis on June 2, 1914. She received many presents which she lists in her diary on June 1, 2 and 3 – “a perfectly exquisite diamond ring from mother and dad, a silver card case all filled with money, just beautiful, from Aunt Minnie,” many gold pins, a parasol, stationery, gauze fans, silver hat pins, gold dress clasps, slipper buckles, and so on. As Jessie would say, everything imaginable! On June 1, Jessie took part in her senior class play. They performed Endymion, and though she didn’t specify the author, I believe it was an Elizabethan era play by John Lyly (c.1588) based on the Greek myth. The auditorium was packed and according to Jessie they had to turn hundreds of people away as there was not even any standing room available. There were 83 classmates in the production and Jessie was a Dryad. The next day, June 2, Jessie graduated. Her class sang two songs as part of the ceremony, Glory to Isis ( Aida) by Verdi and The Heavens are Telling by Haydn.
On Wednesday, March 19, 1913, Jessie wrote in her diary: “I went to the Orpheum tonight with Elmo – the show was splendid. Saw and heard the talking moving pictures. They were wonderful. This is the first time they have ever been heard. Edison is certainly a wonderful man. You forget it was only pictures you were looking at and would think it was the persons themselves.” Five days later on March 24, 1913, she wrote again: “Went to the Orpheum to-night with William F. Had the talking moving pictures again, ‘The Temptation Scene from Faust.'” Jessie was a witness to one of the earliest public presentations of a moving picture with sound.
1913 advertisement
The first known public presentation of a projected moving picture with sound was in Paris in 1900. Thomas Edison had been working on this problem of adding sound to moving pictures since the late 1800s. The three basic problems that Edison and the other inventors who were working on this project had were 1) synchronization of the sound with the visual image, 2) amplification of the sound, and finally 3) producing a good high quality recording. In the late 1800s Edison invented the Kinetoscope. This was a device that a single person could look through to see a short moving picture. Edison had also invented a camera which took many pictures rapidly. Running the film of many separate images past a light source created the ‘moving’ picture. This was the same method used in all movies until the invention of video. Around 1913, using belts and pulleys, he devised a way to sync the sound recorded on a cylinder to the film projector, and this was now called the Kinetophone. The resulting films could only last 6 minutes, limited by the size of the cylinder upon which the sound was recorded. February 17, 1913, Edison debuted this new Kinetophone system (click here to see a Kinetophone film from this presentation) at four vaudeville houses in New York City. The audiences loved it! Jessie and her friends loved it when they saw these films one month later in Memphis. Why then did it take until 1927 for The Jazz Singer, the first talkie feature length film, to appear? In the case of the Kinetophone, a projectionist had to carefully keep the sound and visual images synced by the speed of their manual cranking. Most of the time this didn’t work and the results were sometimes hilarious, but finally frustrating and not worth the public’s money. With the start of World War I in Europe and a fire in Edison’s laboratory in 1914 which destroyed all the original recordings, the Kinetophone was finished after only a year. It took 14 more years until the three basic problems of synchronizing the sound and visual images, amplifying the sound so that it could clearly be heard throughout an auditorium, and making high quality sound recordings was solved. By the 1930s the talkies were everywhere.
On Friday, November 1, 1912, Jessie wrote in her diary that they had a grand time at the dance “…but didn’t stay long because they started ragging.”
This comment, that because the crowd started ragging Jessie and her friends felt they should leave the dance, really made me curious. A few months earlier in the year (on July 9, 1912) Jessie wrote: “Went to a picnic supper and dance at Riverside Pk. this evening with Richard in our car… All that ‘raggy’ bunch went. They are the *society* crowd but they sure do rag.” On July 18th she went to another dance and wrote: “…danced until 2 o’clock but later the crowd got a little raggy.” But on July 27th Jessie seemed to do a little ragging herself when she wrote that a bunch of her friends came over to her house. “We took up the rug in the parlor and danced. Had cake, some class. Sure did have a rag-doll party. Had a grand time.” (I am guessing a ‘rag-doll’ party was a ragging party.)
In 1912 and 1913 the craze that was sweeping the country was ragtime dancing. These were simple dances that anyone could pick up without special lessons, dances such as the Turkey Trot, the Bunny Hug, the Grizzly Bear and the Boll Weevil Wiggle. The “animal dances,” as they were called, shocked genteel America because couples danced alone and held each other, sometimes closely. President Woodrow Wilson actually cancelled the inaugural balls for January 1913 to avoid ‘ragging’ dancers creating a scandal. Even the Vatican got involved. Archbishop Henry Moeller announced that Catholics in the Cincinnati diocese who danced the Turkey Trot and other such dances could not be forgiven for their sins. Some cities banned the Turkey Trot and such at all dances. In Spokane they even considered banning the dances in private homes. At least one scholar wrote a book proclaiming that all these dances were imitating sex actions of the ‘lower animals’ and this is what the dancers are thinking of when they dance the Turkey Trot, Fox Trot, Horse Trot, Fish Walk, Dog Walk, Tiger Dance, Buzzard Lope and Boll Weevil Wiggle. But societal changes have a life of their own and everything is connected. Women’s clothing was becoming less restrictive, dating was done in cars and away from the home, and women would soon get the right to vote. The last remnants of the Victorian Age were disappearing and the cultural separation between men and women was becoming a little smaller. The way the dancers held each other and the energetic and almost improvisatory steps to fast, syncopated music fit the times. The ragtime dance craze would fade away with the onset of World War I to be replaced a few years later with the Jazz Age of the Roaring Twenties.
Here is another collection of cultural tidbits taken from Jessie’s diary. ~
Vaudeville sister act, Madeline & Dorothy Cameron
Vaudeville was the biggest form of live entertainment in 1912. All kinds of acts were included in the traveling shows — magicians, dramatic sketches, opera singers, comedians, barbershop quartets, etc. etc. I think Jessie and her friends saw most of the shows that came to town. The Orpheum was one of the theaters she frequented, and it was there on February 6, 1912, that Jessie saw 1,000 Pounds of Harmony – the hefty men of the Primrose Quartette and thought they were “grand.” These gentlemen were quite popular for some years on the vaudeville circuit, and they got their name, as you might guess, because each of them weighed about 250 pounds.
Vaudeville c.1910, You Naughty boy!
On March 30th Jessie took her friend Willie Swift to the Orpheum to see the show. She especially enjoyed a sketch called The Woman Who Knew. Not everybody enjoyed that act though. A review in Variety (22:6, 4/15/1911) about a performance at the Keith Theatre in Philadelphia had this to say: “The bill at Keith’s was running smoothly and at a good speed until The Woman Who Knew came on stage. Mme. Besson is featured in the Victor H. Smalley piece. According to the program she is a famous portrayer of Zaza and Camille. If this is true, she might be able to get away with a similar role on vaudeville, but as The Woman Who Knew she is hopeless. The sketch has no merit and is badly played.”
Also on March 30th Jessie writes: “Enjoyed being with Willie so much. After the show we bumbed around and saw every-body sporting their new lids. I wore mine of course. It’s real mannish – English shape.” I would love to know exactly what that hat looked like, but instead here are some 1912 advertisements for women’s hats.
fr. Sears Catalog 1912
By the end of March Memphis was soggy with rain and the Mississippi River was higher than it had been in years. After church on Sunday, March 31st, Jessie and her family drove over to see how the River had risen. “It’s awful,” said Jessie. The Great Flood of 1912 was beginning, and I’ll look at that in my next posting.
A train in Memphis finds the tracks are submerged. Dated April 2, 1912.
Memphis Fall Festival program booklet cover, 1911. George Whitworth Collection, historic-memphis.com
In 1911 the Business Men’s Club of Memphis created the first Fall Festival, a 3-day event, September 26-28. On Monday night, September 25th, Jessie and friends “went to town in the machine to see Main Street. It was beautiful, a regular fairyland.” The next day was the opening of the Tri-State Fair, coinciding with the first day of the Fall Festival. Because it was the first day of the fair, children got off school early. Most of them probably went to the afternoon parade celebrating Arts & Industries. On Wednesday there was a parade of the Blue and the Gray, a reunion of old Civil War veterans from both sides who marched together down Main Street. Swayne was a drummer boy in the parade. That was followed by a barbecue in East End Park. Jessie wrote, “Never have I seen so many people down town on one night. The parade was worth it though.” And finally, the last day of the Festival culminated in the grand DeSoto celebration, a historical pageant and parade celebrating the life of the explorer Hernando DeSoto. “It was the most beautiful I ever saw. The floats were all about DeSoto with torches burning on all sides, with fireworks too.”
A page from the program booklet for the Fall Festival in Memphis, 1911. George Whitworth Collection, historic-memphis.comMaple leaf pin from Canada, given to Jessie from Sara C., September 1911
On September 10, 1911, Jessie mentions that her good friend Sara C. “gave me such a pretty little gold maple leaf, the emblem of Canada.” Sara, whom Jessie often calls Taby or Tab, had recently returned from a trip to Canada.
Egg Creams. Did you know there are no eggs in an egg cream? In the September 30, 1911 entry in her diary, Jessie talks about giving her brother Bud, who is recovering from typhoid fever, an egg cream. This piqued my curiosity. The recipe is actually very simple. Follow this link to watch Martha Stewart preparing a Vanilla Egg Cream.
